


love — such as it ends

by KissedByNightshade



Category: Bleach
Genre: Drabble Sequence, Ending Relationship, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-30 16:39:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6432211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KissedByNightshade/pseuds/KissedByNightshade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Does the fact that you're dreaming make it any easier? Not when it happens over and over again, in more and more painful ways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	love — such as it ends

**Author's Note:**

> A series of drabbles I wrote as a challenge to myself. Each is 100 words exactly. Renji uses zhe/zher/zhim pronouns.
> 
> Enjoy your suffering.

if only it were as easy to _let go_ as is to drop your guard where you stand, to sprint across the roiling field screaming his name. you watch him fall, waiting, waiting for the feint, for him to rise to his knees and slice the enemy’s hamstrings. he doesn’t, so you do it for him.

he does not rise again, so you have to carry him off the field. by the time they pry him from your bone-white fingers, he’s gone cold all over, but that’s okay — you have, too. you’re pretty sure you’ll never be warm again.

 

 

* * *

 

 

there’s a man in your bed with him when you come home from work. that shouldn’t be a problem — that was the deal, after all; that was what you agreed upon — except for the man’s identity. spider-like fingers are in _your_  boyfriend’s hair, on his waist.

he won’t meet your eyes.

“aww, it looks like zhe caught us!” ichimaru gin remarks, though there isn’t an ounce of shame in that smirk. you have no right to this feeling, this feeling of… what? jealousy? sadness? fear. but you grasp it anyway, the one thing you have. 

“bad luck, renji-kun."

 

 

* * *

 

 

“he’s stable but unresponsive,” kotetsu says the first day. she also says that on the second day, and the third. doctors always sound like they’re lying, even when they aren’t.

he looks weirdly small, smaller than usual, beneath all those tubes to keep him breathing and fed and hydrated. kotetsu doesn’t have any more answers on the fiftieth day than she did the first, so you ask him why he doesn’t wake up. doesn’t he want to see you again? 

you scowl and blame him and go to sleep in the chair next to the bed. wake up. rinse, repeat.

 

 

* * *

 

 

you shouldn’t have shouted. you know that, but you did and now it’s too late and too dark to find him. 

you check the tree where he usually goes to sulk, and his parents’ grave, and the bar where he and hisagi used to go. you start to _really_ worry around the time matsumoto says she hasn’t seen him either.

she finds his badge tossed under a bush just outside seireitei.

you and she search all night and the next days, but you never find out what happened to him. just like she’ll never know that it’s all your fault.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“it’s not good for him, you know.” his eyes are sympathetic but his mouth is seething, spitting utter nonsense, and you can’t understand. “ _you’re_ no good for him."

you try to argue but the words die in your throat, unspoken conversations playing in your head. ' _who are you to tell me how good I am for him? what about you?’ ‘I’m his captain. it’s my **job** to worry for his sake. you must understand, I want only the best...'_

the kind captain offers you both tea as you mince the words that will break his heart. he’ll understand. some day.

 

 

* * *

 

 

he came back _different_  — cold all over, with eyes like icy stars of steel and the heart missing from his chest. you can’t believe the mouth that tells you he loves you, that it doesn’t matter.

because it does. he looks at you different, and smells different, and _tastes_  different on your tongue. 

it’s almost casual, the way you decide to find out how deep the taste goes. your teeth cleave flesh that by all rights should be rotting — _maybe it is_  — until they scrape bone.  

he seems to say _is that all?_  before the ice in his eyes shatters.

 

 

* * *

 

 

you aren’t sure why aizen is moving like that — his body willowing back and forth, his palms spread wide and a look like gratitude in his eyes. is that how he looked when he was a captain? you can’t remember.

he doesn’t move when you stab him. 

you know something’s wrong by the way the blade feels too _light_ in his gut, and zabimaru is quick to affirm, _don’t move me! shit, where’s…_

you watch brown hair turn blond and tranquil brown eyes turn a stormy blue. your mind stutters to a stop, and he coughs regret onto your hakama.

 

 

* * *

 

 

you understand duty. all shinigami do; it’s their bread and butter. duty is the one thing that separates them from the enemy, the mindless killers.

you don’t understand how _this_  is duty. he has to do it, he tells you, for his family. the bitter regret in his eyes almost matches your own. _what do nobles know about family?_

the girl is pretty, you suppose, but she has nothing on him. and what business does he have standing next to her like that? that’s all water under the bridge. but even so. 

a vow and he’s out of reach forever.

 

 

* * *

 

 

he’s crying. you notice that first. he’s crying and you haven’t seen him cry in years. you try to reach up and comfort him, but your arm refuses to move move. it takes you a minute to realize that it’s two meters away.

so is the lower half of your body.

no wonder your legs aren’t hurting so much anymore. 

there’s a frantic, birdlike motion as he tries to heal you, tries to piece you back together. he’s getting blurry. or are you crying now too?

no, that’s just everything getting dark. you don’t even get a chance to say goodbye.

 

 

* * *

 

 

your worst nightmare is hardly the most brutal of them, but a stranger wouldn’t know it from the way you cringe and fall back as though struck. his eyes aren’t cold but they’re _hard_ , and he looks ashamed of himself in such a way that makes you want to comfort him.

despite it all.

“I’m sorry, abarai-kun. goodbye."

you want to stop him from walking away, grab his shoulder and beg. but it’s not like you didn’t expect it to end this way. in fact, if you’re real honest, maybe you knew it all along. 

letting go is _hard_.


End file.
